It's just Kat
by SunbeamsAndSomeBeans
Summary: Kat always managed to fit in better than her younger siblings. Name, clothes, her own flesh; if it didn't fit, it had to change. With a strange, sullen little sister, a brother who can't stay out of trouble, and her own secret shame, clinging to normality seems to be just enough for now. Human AU, TW: Eating disorder.
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter One**_

"... so then, I was telling him that I was there before him, I mean, you've seen me in the morning, I'm first in line for coffee, only Lukas and his brother beat me to it, you've seen me."

Kat nodded, turning her bottle of water over and over in her hands, enjoying the cool weight of it.

"And then, he said that he was there first, and called me sweetheart!"

Kat smiled at Liz's indignant facial expression.

"So what did you do?"

Liz huffed and flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder. Some got caught on the flower-shaped clip she wore in it, and she continued her story as Kat reached across and untucked it.

"Well, I told him not to call me that, so he called me Tittenfrau, which isn't even real German, so I may have elbowed him in the gut."

Lili burst laughing, earning a frown from Vash. "You hit him?"

Liz grinned widely, eyes glittering. "No, I elbowed him. If you aim for around about here"- she gestured to her solar plexus- "it'll knock the wind out of them for long enough to get away. Or get your coffee." She drained the last of her current beverage, a sports drink of some sort, and grabbed her backpack. "Anyway, I've got to go. I've got swimming later, so if I want to see you-know-who, it should probably be now."

"You should probably stop calling him that" suggested Matthew with a smile. "It kind of makes it sound like you're dating Voldemort."

Liz ruffled his hair in response, and squeezed Kat's shoulder. "Call me about Vargas' homework later, OK?" Kat nodded, and Liz jogged off to the entrance of the cafeteria.

Kat didn't realise that she'd been staring after her until her eyes felt uncomfortably dry, feeling as though they might give off sparks when they returned to the view in front of her. Lili was daintily nibbling on a sandwich. While she was two years younger, she and Vash tended to come as a package, and she was such a sweet girl that no-one could really take any issue with her being there. Vash himself was effortlessly scribbling his way through some last minute economics homework, stern expression being the only thing really differentiating him from his younger sister. Matthew appeared to be trying to signal for help, until Kat realised that he was waving his hands in her face. She shook her head and smiled brightly.

"You alright?"

"Sorry, just spaced out for a minute there." Kat noticed the unusual abundance of pizza on Matthew's plate.

"Aren't you hungry?"

Matthew finished off one of the five pieces. "It's not all for me. Alfred wanted as much pizza as I could get, and said he'd meet me here, but I guess something came up."

Kat laughed. Alfred was Matthew's younger brother, in the grade below them. The awkward teenage phase seemed to have completely passed him by; in fact, he was confident and boisterous to a fault, and was highly unlikely to shy away from conflict (in fact, he was usually the one causing it). Unfortunately, his main source of conflict happened to be Ivan, Kat's equally confident and boisterous younger brother.

"Maybe he and Ivan are fighting again?" Kat meant it as a joke but secretly hoped not.

"I hope not, Dad is going to freak out if Alfred gets detention again." Matthew pushed his glasses up his nose. He was a lanky, soft-spoken boy with a mass of dark blond hair and a kind smile. From what Kat had gathered, he wasn't exactly used to being showered with attention, and seemed to be overlooked altogether by various teachers and even his own father. He was like her, really, she decided; sort of like white noise. You'd notice his absence, but wouldn't know what was missing.

Matthew shrugged. "So anyway, since Alfred's probably being yelled at by Vargas again, help me eat this pizza?"

And that was when Kat's stomach clenched protectively. It helped slightly; sometimes, the gnawing empty ache of hunger could be muted by the rigidity of her abdominal muscles. She'd been so good today; she'd considered an apple for breakfast, feeling its smooth weight in the palm of her hand before returning it to the fruit bowl unscathed, reminding herself that this was about willpower as much as anything. She couldn't risk a repeat of last night. How many of those little cakes again, twelve? How many were in a packet? She shuddered.

"Kat? Pizzaaaa…."

She noticed that Matthew was holding a piece in front of her face. It's grease, she told herself. Nothing but visceral, shiny grease.

It looked wonderful.

The shame didn't hit her until her inevitable trip to the bathroom. The act itself was not a problem. It had become almost a clinical, emotionless procedure; lock the stall door, fingers down the throat. She wiggled them slightly, feeling the lead weight in her stomach gather into one mass.

Not long to wait now, she thought, as her mouth filled with spit. Some of it spilled down her fingers and swung, rope-like, over the water below.

Soon enough, as they always did, someone used the hand drier. Up and out. The water in her stomach helped slightly to soften it, as her fingers scrabbled at the back of her throat, pushing out more and more of it, as much as she could before the hand drier fell silent.

When her final retch failed to produce any evidence of food, and the bathroom was vacated, she sat on the toilet seat, hunched over. She rested her face in her folded arms and felt the familiar burning shame spread from her aching stomach to her raw throat, to her pulsating fingertips.

Two slices. Matthew had just witnessed her eat two slices of pizza. And she knew that it can't have been a pleasant sight; she must have looked grotesque, cramming it into her mouth, lips and fingers slick with oil. Greedy girl. Greedy, pungent, revolting child.

Her waist band was digging into her stomach. With the usual juddering sigh, she flushed the toilet, and made her way to the mirror, Still a faint sheen of grease around her mouth, she noticed, scrubbing at it hard with tissue paper. None of the tell-tale red dots around her eyes, thankfully. Her face still looked slightly puffy, but, as she frequently reminded herself, no-one would notice. She resolutely walked out of the bathroom, and towards her next class.

"Ivan got detention again?" asked Liz, as Kat followed her in the direction of the gym. Kat shook her head.

"No. Well, he might. Anyway, I'm walking Natalya home once she's done with gymnastics."

They were approaching the large, block-like gym building. Liz nodded.

"Cool, well, I'll call you later, OK?" She gave Kat a quick hug and jogged off. Kat headed to the gym.

Unsurprisingly, Natalya was not even close to getting changed to go home. In fact, a couple of girls exited the gym as she was still performing a series of handsprings, one bitterly muttering "Yeah, we get it, you're good, no need to hog the beam for an hour."

Kat leaned against the wall and observed her younger sister for a moment. Little Natalya, as cold and beautiful as a snowflake, barely making a sound as she spun through the air. She wasn't a bad child; she was intelligent, confident and so talented, almost to a fault.

Kat had fit in like she'd always been there; from the first day of teachers calling "Yekaterina Braginskaya" on the register (with varying levels of success in terms of pronunciation), she had smiled brightly and said "It's just Kat". She had worked to tone down her accent, despite being far from the only foreign student at the school. Over time, she changed her clothes, particularly after Mei in her Geography class had clapped her hands and squealed "You look so eighties, is that really how you dress in Eastern Europe?" She had meant it as a compliment, it turned out, but it stung. Kat worked hard; she was an adequate student (not exceptional), as far as she was aware, no-one seemed to dislike her, in fact, her bright smile and pet names for people and eagerness to help ensured that, at worst, people merely considered her to be a sweet, possibly quite vapid girl, and nothing more.

Her siblings, however, had not made any effort to modify their behaviour, appearance, or anything else. Natalya knew perfectly well how the other girls in her grade saw her; it would be impossible not to overhear whispers of "Stuck up bitch" and "Thinks she's better than everyone". At thirteen, Kat would have been destroyed if people saw her like that. Natalya, however, not only seemed to know about her image, but revelled in it. She had no interest in befriending anyone, fitting in, or returning the affections of the awkward adolescent boys who stared at her in awe. She almost never smiled, but had always been blessed in the looks department; dark blue, almost violet eyes, and long blonde hair as soft as whispers. At her age, she remained resolutely slender, and, sometimes, to her eternal shame, Kat found herself wishing that she too had the body of an athletic pubescent girl.

Natalya was strange alright; she kept to herself (unless she was following Ivan around like a shadow), talked about her ghost friends ("Strong imagination", their father would say with a smile), and Kat had caught her, on numerous occasions, whispering what she assumed were secrets to a pretty, ornate knife she had saved up her allowance to buy. Natalya, Kat thought, would probably grow up to be a remarkable achievement in and of herself, or a serial killer. Possibly both.

Ivan, like Natalya, didn't see much need to change anything about himself to fit in; Kat couldn't tell sometimes if he was genuinely oblivious, or just didn't care that everyone was either afraid of him or regarded him with scorn. He was a huge boy, and, at fifteen, towered over her. Strong as well, possibly due to their father showing him how to box, and his quite frankly heroic food intake. Unlike his little sister, he smiled almost constantly; he would be running around in gym class, chattering to that Chinese boy in his year, antagonising Matthew's brother, or even simply staring into space, content with his own thoughts (another trait shared with Natalya, who claimed to find TV static relaxing), and that smile would rarely shift.

Kat realised with a jolt that her sister was standing in front of her, looking deeply unimpressed.

"How did it go?" she asked. Natalya's expression remained sullen.

"You were just watching, you should know." She turned to walk to the changing rooms. "I'll meet you outside."

Kat stared up at the clouds outside, her insides feeling sad, and empty, and fizzy, and sore, and wondered if maybe Natalya's self-imposed exile from her classmates might have been the best option.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_

Kat's father, as part of his determination to have the closest thing to a perfect nuclear family he could since his wife's death ten years earlier, worked from home.

This did not work in Kat's favour, as she reminded herself upon walking into the kitchen to be greeted by her father stirring a large, bubbling pot of stew.

"Katyusha" he smiled and kissed the top of her head. "Good day?" Before she could answer, he noticed Natalya rapidly disappearing up the stairs.

"And hello to you too, Natalya!" he called after her, before shaking his head and resuming stirring the stew. It smelled rich, and Kat could see drops of oil, coloured orange and ember with spices, floating on the surface. Must be fatty meat in there, she decided.

"Hope you're hungry" her father said with a smile. "Now, where might your brother be?"

Kat shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't see him today."

At that moment, the front door swung open, and in strolled Ivan, clad in his ever-present coat and scarf, despite the mild weather.

"Shoes, Ivan" Mr. Braginski muttered in exasperation for what had to be the thousandth consecutive day. "And where have you been?"

Ivan beamed and ruffled Kat's hair, much to her annoyance. "Spending time with a friend of mine."

Mr. Braginski gave a defeated sigh. "And by that, you mean detention because you've been fighting with that idiot Alfred again."

Ivan ripped a chunk of bread off the still-warm loaf on the counter and stuffed it into his mouth. "Wurnfy-imph" he explained. Kat took this opportunity to disappear to her room.

"How was gymnastics today?" Mr. Braginski asked his daughter. Natalya pushed a piece of potato around her plate, having eaten her fill of the stew.

"Fine."

"Just fine? What did you actually do?"

"Beam."

Seeing that this line of questioning was getting him nowhere, her father's focus shifted to Ivan.

"And you, Ivan? What did you do, other than get detention?"

Ivan wiped the last of his second portion of stew from his plate with a thick slice of bread. "We're doing a history project on the Cold War. We get to do it in pairs."

Mr. Braginski frowned. "The Cold War?" Ivan nodded enthusiastically.

"It's interesting. I already have some books on it from the library, I just need to find a partner now."

"Doesn't the teacher pair you up?"

"No. I asked Alfred if he'd like to be my partner, it makes sense showing two sides of it-"

"- and that, presumably, turned into an argument."

Ivan paused. "It was more of a conversation. A loud conversation. Then Alfred called me a commie, and I thought he was making a joke, so I called him a fat lazy burger fool, and then he threw a text book at my head. That's how I got this." He lifted his floppy, ash-blond hair off his forehead to reveal a small lump, slowly starting to bruise. Natalya gripped her knife and stabbed the unwanted chunk of potato. "I don't think Alfred got my joke."

"Would you like me to curse him?"

Natalya's question didn't sound particularly odd, coming from her; she asked it in the manner of someone offering a cookie. Mr. Braginski clearly found it at least mildly disturbing, however.

"What are you talking about, Natalya?"

"It's simple. You take a lock of the target's hair, tie a red piece of string around it, and hold it in the flames of a black candle, while reciting-"

"-Natalya" Kat interrupted, "Even if you somehow managed to get a lock of Alfred's hair, all that would do is fill the house with the smell of burning hair."

"Your sister's right. And I don't want you tampering with that sort of thing, you never know what you'll do."

"You believe in magic, then?" Natalya asked pointedly.

"I believe that young girls should not be attempting to curse people. Or burning hair. They should be clearing the table, then doing their homework."

Kat's fingers traced along the bulge of her abdomen. She swore she could feel a film of grease coating her mouth, and the lunchtime pizza danced in her memory. God, how much bread had she eaten? Had to be at least three slices. Thick slices. And of course she'd had a big portion of the stew, the strong flavours soaking into and flavouring every inch of her innards. She didn't even particularly like the stew; it was too strong, the meat chewy with white ribbons of fat, the dumplings had the texture of modelling clay. She could feel her ill-deserved meal writhe within her like a newly awoken abomination.

Abdomination, she thought without mirth. She could feel sweat beading at her hairline and under her breasts.

Why had she eaten so much? She didn't even think, just consumed. She closed her eyes for a moment all she could see was a grotesque creature, featureless except for two long arms indiscriminately shoving, packing, cramming piles of slop into a vast, insatiable opening.

"Do you need me to wash the plates?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking. Her father shook his head.

"No, I think Ivan can handle that tonight. Do you have much homework to do?"

"History. Just some questions. I'm going to take a bath before I start on them."

"Very well. Don't forget to come and say goodnight later."

It was like an exorcism; her holy water being the water splashing noisily into the bathtub, disguising the splatter of her stew, looking much the same as before, against the ceramic of the toilet bowl, only to slide into the water with a soft, dispirited plop. It just kept coming up; every time she thought that she could rest, curled around the toilet that provided her comfort, she'd feel another small chunk of that awful meat at the back of her throat, and her gag reflex forced everything up and out, until her head was spinning and her ears ringing.

She had done her research, mind; she was mostly relieved that she showed no signs yet of a diminishing gag reflex. In fact, she had learned to play her insides like a musical instrument; she sometimes imagined what this must look like from the inside, and couldn't decide if this was better or worse than her reality.

Eventually, it was just spit stained with spices, and the tub was nearly full. She stood up, having been holding the door shut with one foot (her father still hadn't fixed the bathroom lock), flushed. Flushed again. Threw some scrunched up tissues to hide the still slightly cloudy water. And then, she was ready to deal with her reflection.

She slowly pulled her t-shirt over her head, noticing when it caught even the slightest bit on a stray curve. She undid the top button of her jeans, fingers whispering over the indent left in her soft belly by the waist band. Finally, in one last move, like ripping off a scab, she unhooked her bulky bra, and slid her panties around her ankles. All she could see was flesh. Her pale thighs, fighting for dominance if she stood with her feet together, her stomach as soft as cake mixture, her chubby upper arms that looked even bigger thanks to the muscle underneath from hauling bags of soil and compost around at her part time job, her pendulous breast, heavy and slightly stretch marked...

And her face. Her stupid, gormless, pasty pudding face. Currently blotchy, and with those red dots she hated so much. They went away eventually, and weren't that noticeable unless someone was looking for them, but still felt like reminders of her own weakness. Her eyes had been watering at some point; her eyelashes were wet and spiky. She remembered how much she used to cry as a child; her mother used to say that she was sensitive, everyone else said she was merely a crybaby.

Kat threw her towel over the mirror, and climbed into the batch, enjoying the cleansing burn of her holy water, too hot really. She lay back and watched the various colours and patterns behind her eyelids (probably also fat and unshapely, she reasoned), fingers running along her own contours. Here, in the water, she felt almost fine; she was soft, like the water, she could easily dissolve into it. She thought of mermaids, and how they were always drawn as slender girls with long, flowing hair. She wondered if there were mermaids that had her fat and the tail of a manatee. Would that be beautiful? She was interrupted by the door opening.

Kat's eyes opened to see Natalya standing there, curious. "I left my hair brush in here", she offered by way of explanation. Taking it from the counter, she turned around and eyed Kat again, as though she were pondering something.

"Natalya, what are you staring at?" Kat found herself wrapping her arms around her chest.

"What is it like? Having those, I mean. Aren't they heavy?"

Kat nodded. "Yes. They hurt my back sometimes."

Natalya chewed on her lip in contemplation. "Are mine going to grow that big? I would be unbalanced, I wouldn't be able to do gymnastics."

Unbalanced was certainly a good word for Natalya, but Kat just gave a rueful smile. "They won't. You don't eat as much as I do, remember? And you're naturally small anyway."

Natalya nodded, satisfied with her answer, and left. Kat just stared at the ceiling until the water turned cold and her father shouted a goodnight through the door.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note- Sorry, I know these are usually tedious, so I'll keep this short. I'd just like to know if anyone has any comments or questions, please message me or leave a review. Reviews are always appreciated. **_

_**Also, while this is a human AU and not about personified nations, my thoughts are with Ukraine at the moment during this, frankly, horrible time. **_

_**Chapter 3**_

Kat avoided lunch the next day, deciding instead to go for a walk around the school grounds. The cafeteria was the worst place that she could possibly be; filled with food, people eating food, people asking why she wasn't eating food, and she wasn't sure which of her excuses she had used the least recently.

It was raining. She remembered reading somewhere that a lowered body temperature burns calories. She wasn't sure if that was right, but it seemed as good a reason as any to spend the remaining hours of her school day sat in damp clothes.

Most other students were indoors today, either in the cafeteria, the library, or milling around various unused classrooms. She could see Ludwig running around the track, however; rain was apparently no excuse to call off his exercise regime. Ludwig's older brother Gilbert was in her home room. They both seemed to effortlessly coast by in terms of grades, although she wasn't sure if Ludwig had to try harder; according to Ivan, he at least seemed to take his school work more seriously. Gilbert, on the other hand, could easily get a B with a last-ditch effort scribbled the night before, and was usually out getting drunk at the weekend. He seemed to particularly like annoying Liz, who had known him since childhood.

The thought of Liz made her feel sad. She hadn't outright stated it, but Kat suspected that she was annoyed that she hadn't called her, like she'd promised. Kat made up an excuse about a headache (well, not technically an excuse, her head did throb and pulsate after un-swallowing that vast expanse of food), and Liz's response of "It's fine, really, I did it myself anyway" left a lot to be desired.

Ludwig had stopped running, and was now trailing up the grassy slope towards the changing rooms behind her. He nodded at her as he walked past.

"Wonderful weather" she said with a half-hearted smile. Ludwig looked confused.

"Why are you out here?"

Nothing immediately came to mind, and she regretted making conversation.

"It's just nice to go for a walk sometimes." Ludwig remained perplexed. She gave another weak smile. "Anyway, I'd better go inside."

Kat had only just stepped into the hall when she felt the weight of Liz crashing into her.

"Kat! I've been looking for you." She frowned. "You're soaked, have you been out in the rain?"

"I ran across to the gym", Kat explained, feeling relieved and slightly proud of how quickly she'd thought of an excuse. "I had to tell Natalya something."

"You idiot" Liz scolded. "Come on, I've got a spare t-shirt in my locker."

Kat managed to snort with despairing laughter, earning a strange look from Liz.

"What?"

"Thanks for the offer, but your clothes probably won't fit me."

Liz rolled her eyes. "It's fine, it's too big for me anyway. Come on, we've only got ten minutes."

And Kat followed her, mutely nodding occasionally at her bubbling commentary on Lili's haircut ideas ("She suggested a pixie crop and Vash looked like he was going to mess his pants") and how things were going with her sort-of-boyfriend Roderich ("He's paying me as much attention as his piano now, you should have been there at lunch, he brought in this amazing chocolate torte"). Kat's mind snagged slightly on "chocolate", but mostly stuck resolutely to one phrase:

_...it's too big for me anyway. _

_Too. _

_Big._

The words flapped and pecked like trapped birds, and Kat was overcome with that familiar, crushing shame. Too big. Too big. Even her best friend saw it and acknowledged it. Too big clothes for a too big girl, with her too big tits and too big thighs and too big arms, flabby arms, stomach engorged and sending buttons scattering across the floor like cockroaches-

Liz handed her a t-shirt. It was her swimming club shirt, black with a large logo on the back featuring the silhouette of a swimmer, and the school crest on the front. Kat noted the size with distaste.

"Why do you even have a shirt this big?"

They headed towards the nearest bathroom.

"Dingo ordered one too small, so he let me have it."

Kat wasn't sure of Dingo's real name, only that Liz's burly Australian team mate didn't appreciate the nickname. She locked herself in the cubicle and, shivering, removed her own sodden shirt. She got the dry one over her head with no trouble, and pulled it down.

And pulled.

And pulled some more.

It's just hitched up at the back, she told herself, wriggling her fingers up her back to check.

No. She forced it down, only to stare down in disgust at the realisation that it was practically straining across her chest.

"Kat? Come on, we've got to go."

Kat took a deep breath, and opened the door. Liz whistled. "Wow, you can have that one. You look better in it than I ever did."

Kat's eyes darted around, searching for anything to cover her.

"Do you have a sweater, or..."

"No, sorry. Don't worry, that classroom is boiling anyway. All you've got to worry about is that pervy IT guy eyeing you up."

The rest of the day was hell. Kat was conscious of every bounce and jiggle, torn between _all eyes are on me_ and _get over yourself, no-one's going to look at you. _But that group of boys were definitely laughing at something, and she could feel the IT guy's gaze, and it got worse when she sat down and all she could feel were rolls. She caught sight of herself in the computer lab window, and noticed that her hair was plastered flat against her head from the rain, hair band falling down. By contrast, Liz looked gorgeous as ever without even trying; sometimes, though she hated herself for it, Kat wished that Liz could have either an utterly awful personality, or at least some glaring physical flaw. Preferably the latter, since Liz's inherent friendliness was possibly the only reason that Kat had made friends in the first place. Nothing that would wreck her life, just... a huge nose. Or bad teeth. Or angry-looking acne.

Thankfully, in Chemistry, she at least got to wear a lab coat. Matthew was in that class, and promised her a loan of his spare hockey sweater to walk home in. The rain had dulled down to a slight drizzle by this point, so she declined his offer of a lift. Plus, her father had left a list of groceries out for her, since he'd be away at a conference tonight, so she needed to pick those up.

It was about fifteen minutes before the bell rang that the idea started to grow in her mind. Just a tiny, dark seed, telling her that she would be in the store. That Ivan had chess club tonight. That Natalya, having retrieved her hairbrush last night, would have no reason to bother her. That she'd been good today. That she'd been bad today, walking around in a t-shirt like that, what must people think of her lumpy, awful body.

She wasn't sure when all this had started; she seemed to have gone from eating until she was past full, to eating until she was past full and maybe, occasionally, allowing herself the release of a quick finger down the throat (she rationalised this by listing things that she needed to do, say, homework, that she'd be too distracted and nauseous to manage if she didn't get rid of a little extra baggage). And then it was uncomfortable, and horrible, but then it was less so, and eventually it was just something she did, like urinate or brush her teeth or pluck her eyebrows.

She couldn't remember when she started the planning, though. There must have been a step between that, and scanning her life for any opportunity to do this, this disgusting act, this gluttonous display.

I won't do it, she told herself. I don't have to. I won't. I've been good today.

But, by the time she was at the store, and had calmly loaded up her basket with the groceries (not much, just milk, and, following the vague description "Whatever you three would like for dinner", the ingredients for a light stir-fry, which hardly counted as damage limitation), she couldn't just go to the checkout and leave. She was walking in a straight line, she knew she was, but something was blowing her off course. And, by the time she was looking at the large bin of half-price packs of muffins, that idea, that plan, had blossomed into a flower, seeping into every crevice of her brain like ink in water.

"Having a party?" asked the cashier, eyeing up her haul. She forced herself to nod. There was no change (despite the post script on the note stating "PS- I want to see some change!"); she'd have to take the money out of her wages on Saturday and hope her father didn't ask her for it before then. Today was Thursday, so it was a possibility.

She returned home to an empty house. A cursory glance at her phone revealed that Natalya was going to stay at school and walk home with Ivan after chess club. Ivan's chess games seemed to go on for eons, so she had at least an hour and a half to herself. Perfect, since a percentage of her haul required heating.

Her fingers trembled as she packed the stir fry ingredients into the fridge, leaving her with a paper bag of awful, beautiful, sinful food, and her thoughts. Or lack of.

First thing to do was put the frozen chicken nuggets in the oven. Her father had expressed dismay the first time he tried a McNugget, and had refused any processed chicken produce since. Even Kat wasn't that impressed by them, but now, the crispy, oily batter smothered in melted cheese and barbeque sauce sounded like...

Like stability. Comfort. Danger, disgust, hatred, wanting...

Those would take twenty minutes. She headed to the living room with her bag of treats, and hid it inside that pouffe that also functioned as a storage space if the top was lifted off. Her father had bought it second hand, and apparently had still yet to discover this. The only part of her feast that she didn't hide away was the bottle of diet soda and the huge bag of pretzels. Savoury first. Snack savoury, cold meat savoury (in this case, those little satay chicken skewers, ready to eat from the packet when she got round to them), hot meat savoury, chocolate sweet, fruity sweet, bland, dairy sweet.

The pretzels were crunchy, and salty, and numerous. She didn't finish them in one go, even with the glugs of soda in the meantime, but intermittently crammed in more handfuls in between those chicken skewers, and kept them out. Salt provided a nice contrast to sweet, she thought, hands deliriously moving of their own accord from bag to mouth, bag to mouth, bag to mouth.

The chicken nuggets, when the timer went off, were pulled sizzling and spitting from the oven, and thrown onto a plate. Kat burned her wrist in the process, feeling the welt swelling, but paying it no mind, as she scattered grated cheese across them. Just one minute in the microwave, and the gooey mass was burning, scalding her fingers and tongue as she frantically nibbled the coating off to allow the "chicken" in the centre to cool off as soon as possible.

Half past four. She had plenty of time.

Those chocolate muffins now, although she managed only one before her stomach felt full beyond recognition, as though it had been replaced with a sack of wet cement. She ran to the bathroom, mentally promising the remaining food that she'd be back, and bent double over the toilet, gathering the wanton lumpy mess inside of her into one foul entity. Fingers, movement, spit and the blood rushing in her ears. The first retch produced a few barely-chewed morsels of chicken and some vaguely sweet gunge that was previously muffin. Her stomach gathered more, forced it upwards, and suddenly it arced out of her, splatting into the toilet bowl, rough lumps and undissolved salt crystals, and smooth, cloudy muck, hitting the water and splashing it back into her face. Her third retch was when it petered out, when she accepted that the first of the pretzels had probably been lost to her digestive system.

Both the consumption and subsequent purging of the rest of the food, the muffins, that bag of gummies, that large bottle of vanilla milkshake, all interspersed with the last of the pretzels, went much more smoothly. After the third flush, she allowed herself to lean back against the cool tile wall, and bask in the post-purge haze for as long as she could until the shame came crashing down on her like a wave. Eventually, she just felt sad, and fat, and sore, and almost empty.

She cleared away the packaging, washed the dishes, and started dinner. She was just adding the crunchy, sliced vegetables to the chicken in the pan when Ivan and Natalya arrived home, Natalya holding onto Ivan's arm with a vice-like grip. Despite her cold demeanour, Natalya was capable of showing affection towards her family; she still occasionally wriggled up to Kat on the couch and rested her head on her shoulder, or simply appeared wordlessly in her room with a handful of hair clips and a brush so that Kat could do her hair in that complicated, braided up-do that Natalya could never manage herself (Kat herself had cut her hair into a rough bob a year ago after Liz pointed out that all she did was complain about how much effort her long hair was to maintain; she had to admit that short hair suited her better, or would once her face slimmed down). Ivan, however, seemed to be her favourite. From childhood, she had adored her big brother, and followed him around everywhere. Kat sometimes felt jealous of their bond (Ivan, while he sometimes found Natalya annoying and frequently hid in the attic just for some peace and quiet, would still punch someone into the middle of next week if they offended her), and wondered what it was that made her siblings closer to each other than to her. She suspected that it came down to strength of character; she was a peacekeeper, a caretaker. Liz often jokingly referred to her as "mother" when she tutted and looked after her after a party, or made sure that she got home OK if it was late, or that time she sewed a button back onto her jacket without even being asked.

It wasn't that Natalya and Ivan sought animosity between them and others; they just simply didn't care. Ivan seemed to find conflict of any form amusing, Natalya had no problem instigating it. Ivan viewed everyone as a potential friend, even if they had just punched him in the face, Natalya didn't seem to want friends at all. Ivan, however, was generally more appreciative of her than Natalya, she noted.

Over dinner, Ivan was still talking about his Cold War project, having decided to partner up with Yao, a Chinese boy in his class who was arguably the closest thing he had to a friend.

"We're meeting in the library tomorrow, so I'll be home late" he explained. "He's already done a lot of research, so it's probably good that Alfred didn't want to work with me after all."

"Who did he end up working with?" asked Kat, wondering who would want to be stuck with a partner who, from what Matthew told her, rarely actually did any work.

"Arthur."

"Who?"

Natalya and Ivan simultaneously pointed to their eyebrows.

"Oh, Arthur. Yes, I know who you mean. I'm sure he's nice, but I bought something off him at that bake sale for the school newspaper..."

Ivan laughed. "You didn't eat it, did you?"

"I tried."

Arthur was a British boy in Ivan's grade. He had always been perfectly polite on the handful of occasions where Kat had spoken to him, but then, she had also witnessed him hurl a heroically creative assortment of profanities at various other students when annoyed, mostly when they commented on his rather large eyebrows.

Natalya shifted in her seat. "I'll be home late as well."

"Gymnastics? Again?"

"No. Detention."

Kat groaned. "Nat!"

"Natalya."

"Right. Why?"

Natalya scowled. "A boy sat next to me when I was eating my lunch." She set her knife and fork together, signalling that she was finished with her dinner. "He told me I was pretty."

Kat and Ivan exchanged baffled looks. "And what is the problem with that?"

Natalya huffed and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Pretty is for little girls and small dogs."

"Natalya, it was clearly a compliment."

"Why? I'm good at gymnastics, I like magic, I like to read, I'm learning to throw knives, what does pretty have to do with any of that? It was a stupid comment."

Kat shook her head. "You still haven't explained why this means that you have detention."

"I twisted his arm behind his back and told him to go away. Beilschmidt saw me, and said it was unnecessary."

"Who was it?" Ivan asked, picking the last of the noodles and shredded carrot from the bowl.

"Tolis, I think his name is."

"Hmmm." Ivan thoughtfully twirled his fork in his fingers. "Well, if he doesn't leave you alone, tell me."

Natalya beamed, and gave him a quick hug. No-one seemed to notice when Kat started clearing the dishes.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Note- Hello there, sorry it took a while to post this, I've been busy with work and family gubbins. Thanks for reviews and follows/favourites too, means a lot to me. If you've got any opinions on the story, positive or negative, by all means let me know. **_

_**This chapter is mostly a bit of character... not so much development as just characters interacting. And guess what? I managed to write Lovino and Antonio in. And I did it without once mentioning tomatoes. **_

_**Chapter 4**_

It hadn't been too bad, not since that binge the other night. Binge. Disgusting word. It brought to mind foul, thick muck, oozing from toilets and drainpipes. Almost like the compost she was currently hauling from the stock room.

Except that wasn't accurate; she liked the compost. It was cool and moist and helped things grow.

That, and dragging around these heavy sacks of it probably burned at least a few calories. Not that she had many to burn.

Thursday: She capped off her day of shame by ridding herself of the small portion of stir fry. Natalya had been in the bathroom, so she resorted to her stash of zip-lock bags under her bed. She had realised, with a wave of nausea not induced via her fingers, that she was building up quite the collection; a mass grave of wasted, partially digested food. She threw it out with the rest of the trash later, declaring that to be that, and lay on her bed, feeling drained.

Friday: No breakfast, just a mug of green tea. Inside, she felt sick and empty, the need for food gnawing at her, but she also felt light. Inside, anyway. A glance in the mirror soon disposed of that feeling. She couldn't quite get out of eating at lunch time; her excuse of leaving her lunch at home prompted Matthew to offer her some of his. She took an apple and thanked him with a smile.

"You can't just have that for lunch, surely?" Matthew asked. She was not proud of herself for snapping.

"Why, do I look like I should be stuffing burgers down my throat instead?" she folded her arms across her heavy breasts and scowled.

"What? No. Besides, I see plenty of that at home." Matthew jerked a thumb in the general direction of the table behind them, where Alfred was, in fact, in the process of stuffing a burger down his throat. "It's just… you can share my sandwich if you want."

Kat stared down at herself, wondering if her shirt was suddenly shrinking or if she was imagining things. She imagined her pale, doughy flesh expanding as though being baked. A fat girl with no self-control and a nasty attitude.

"I'm sorry." She smiled wanly. "Didn't mean to snap, I just don't feel hungry. Big breakfast."

She had managed to get by on that apple until dinner, when her father aimed too high by attempting to make something involving what was supposed to be fish and pastry. The resulting charred block smelled so awful that even Ivan wouldn't touch it, and Kat got away with a small salad, while her father took Ivan and Natalya out for tacos, saying that she had a lot of homework to do.

And today was Saturday. She'd allowed herself three salted almonds that morning, savouring the flavour, then downing a large glass of water, washing away the temptation to eat more. She had reached the stage of hunger where she felt slightly sick, and didn't find the idea of food appealing even if she wanted to eat. She bent over for a moment, hands on her knees, feeling weak.

No, not weak. Strong. But tired. That was all. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Kat? Toni says you can take your break now. Hey, are you OK?"

She worked the Saturday shift with Lovino, who was generally nice to her, and shared her interest in gardening. His knowledge in the area seemed to be the only thing qualifying him to work there, given that he divided most of his time between flirting with every female in his line of vision (including Kat herself), and sullenly muttering profanities and acting rather put out whenever asked to do anything by either a male customer, or Toni, the shift supervisor.

Kat stood up, ignoring the buzzing in her head.

"I'm fine, thanks, just a little tired."

Lovino nodded, momentarily distracted by the arrival of Liz.

"Kat! When do you get off?"

Roderich, who had been dragged in behind Liz, feigned interest in a display of garden forks.

"I get off at five, why?"

"Gil's having a party later."

Kat groaned. "Liz, he's-"

"Yeah, I know, he's kind of a jerk sometimes, but come on, he's not going to be the only one there, everyone's going."

"My Dad'll probably say no."

"Just tell him we're having a sleepover."

Kat sighed. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Definitely. Go get your stuff after work and be round mine by six, OK? We'll get ready together. My parents are away at my second cousin's wedding or something, so you can sleep at mine afterwards." Liz turned to Lovino. "Lovi, want to come?" Lovino shook his head.

"Can't."

"Because you hate Gil?"

"No, I don't care if he's a bastard, he's got a nice house and a huge wine cellar, I just have to keep an eye on Feli while Grandpa's off at some stupid work thing."

"So bring him with you. Gil's meant to be looking after Ludwig, and he plans to just order him a pizza and shove him in the den all night, it'll be good for him to have a friend there."

Lovino shrugged. "Can't argue with that. See you later. Feli can sleep over, right?"

"Don't see why not."

"Tell Toni he can come too."

Lovino groaned. "What? Why? I don't need my supervisor breathing down my neck all-"

"He's twenty one" Liz pointed out. "Gil's not going to let us drink all of his Dad's wine cellar, we'll need someone to get drinks."

Toni himself chose that moment to appear. "Kat, you know you can- Oh, hi Liz."

"Toni, Gil's-"

"Yeah, I know, having a party, I'm doing the booze run with Francis. Ten bucks each, OK? Five for Kat and Lovi if they don't say anything to our manager."

Kat laughed. "I wouldn't say anything anyway. Fine, I'll come." It occurred to her that she hadn't spent time with her friends outside of school in a while; she'd dedicated all this time to her school work, and her family, and... well, the other defining issue in her life. She could give herself a night off from all of that. No family there, no homework. So maybe no paralysing guilt either.

"Cool, Mattie's already agreed to come, Vasch can't make it though. Toni, ask Bella and Ned, OK?"

"Already have, they'll be there."

Lovino's eyes lit up at the mention of Bella. "Sounds like a plan, I'll be there around eight."

Roderich snorted. "I wouldn't, it would be just you and Gilbert drinking alone for at least two hours. I'd aim for ten. Hopefully Feliciano and Ludwig will be tired enough by that point to just eat, fall asleep, and miss the worst of it."

"They're not babies, Roddy. Kat, are you going to be needing to use the Beidlschmidt daycare?"

"I doubt it. Dad's home tonight, so Natalya's going to be fine, and Ivan's staying at a friend's house-"

"-wait" interrupted Liz; "Ivan has a friend? No offence, I know he's your brother, but..."

"I was surprised too, but that guy he's doing his history project with asked him to stay over, so I guess he does."

"Cool. OK, see you at about six. Toni, here's the twenty bucks for me and Roddy. Lovi, see you later."]

"I can't believe Roderich's coming to this." Kat dropped her bag on the floor of Liz's kitchen.

"It's no problem, he gets on OK with Gil really." Liz glanced at a note on the fridge. "Cool, my parents left me money for food."

Kat frowned, scanning the unfamiliar words. "Your parents don't write notes in English?" Liz shook her head.

"No. I mean, obviously, they can speak it, but Hungarian's their first language, so that's why they speak it around the house. It's probably a good thing, we only moved here when I was three, so I probably wouldn't have bothered to learn otherwise. Doesn't your Dad speak Russian around you? I mean, you guys only moved here what, three years ago?"

"No. Well, sometimes, but he mostly sticks with English because he wants us to fit in better. And Ivan and Natalya's English wasn't great when we first came here, so it was like immersion learning."

Liz retrieved a cookie from the cupboard and munched it thoughtfully. "Huh. So why do they have stronger accents than you? I mean, you lived there longer."

"I toned mine down. Ivan doesn't see any need to because he's...well... Ivan, and Natalya sometimes speaks in Russian for days at a time if she wants people to leave her alone. Most of her teachers have no idea that she's basically fluent in English."

Liz laughed. "Your siblings are so weird. Not in a bad way, they're actually pretty interesting, just... they're very much their own people, aren't they? They don't care what anyone thinks."

Kat ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. "I wish they'd at least try. Ivan just seems to have no social skills whatsoever; he just assumes that everyone's his friend by default, and doesn't understand that he comes across as overbearing. I mean, how many fights have he and Matthew's brother been in by now? Plenty. And he still says "my friend Alfred" in conversation, even though I'm fairly sure Alfred hates him."

"That's kind of sweet, really, that he sees everyone as a friend."

"Sometimes I wonder if he really does or if he's just fooling himself. He's my brother, and I love him, but he is awful at making friends. Natalya's bad at it too, but that's because she doesn't want friends. She seems to like being on her own, being with Ivan, and sometimes being with me, and that's it. She does care what people think of her, though. I think she wants people to see her as this powerful magical witch. Who does backflips."

Liz laughed. "I keep meaning to talk to her, actually, she's probably OK once you get past the whole..." she cleared her throat and adapted a terrible Russian accent "- I vill crush you viz my mighty beam skills, you capitalist worm".

"Well, let me know if you manage, she was offering to curse Alfred a few nights ago because he threw a textbook at Ivan's head. She even got detention for attacking some boy who said she was pretty."

"Why did she attack him?"

"Because he said she was pretty."

"Which boy was it? Please tell me it was Alfred, apparently he keeps calling her Morticia Addams."

"No, some boy called Toris?"

"Oh, Tolis. He's Eduard's brother. Don't call him Toris though, that's the kind of name you give a dog. Might as well call him Rover. Anyway, my cousin's his best friend."

Eduard was a quiet guy in their year who was rarely seen outside of the computer lab. The rumour was that he was looking at porn in there, although he was actually the one updating the school events calendar. Kat rummaged through her bag. "So I brought these two dresses, which one should I wear?"

They were nice dresses, she decided. A fairly simple robins egg blue one, loose at the top and nipped in with a white belt, and a brown heavy knit sweater dress. Both designed to draw attention away from her body, neither ending above the knee. Liz, however, seemed to disagree.

"Kat, can I be brutally honest with you?"

Kat assumed that she was not going to like what she was about to here. She nodded mutely.

"This one" Liz held up the blue dress- "Makes you look like something out of Little House on the Prairie. And this one-" She gestured to the brown dress "- is hideous and I have had fantasies about burning that thing since you first tried it on and insisted on buying it."

Kat's cheeks felt unnaturally warm. Liz seemed to notice, hopped off the counter, and hugged her.

"I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a bitch, it's just... you've got such a great figure, I don't get why you go around dressed like my mother. Come on, let me lend you one of mine. It's a little loose around the bust on me, so it'll probably fit you. I'll do your makeup, and you can do one of those fancy braided hairdos on me, OK?"

Liz was a good friend, thought Kat. Such a good friend. She was offering to make her look nice, and all she could think of was "What if they look at me. What if they don't?" She nodded gratefully.

They were nearly ready when Liz reached under her bed and brought out a quiver filled with arrows. Kat raised a (beautifully filled-in) eyebrow.

"Are you sure this is a party, or is it the Hunger Games tribute parade?"

Liz grinned and slid a bottle of wine out from it. "This is where I keep contraband."

"So why do you have arrows in the first place?"

"I used to do archery until a few years ago. I won a few trophies, but figured I'd concentrate on the swimming and school work." She pointed to the shelf practically groaning under the weight of her sporting achievements. Kat fiddled with the hem of her dress.

"Are you sure this dress-"

"No, it doesn't make you look slutty, no, your boobs do not look ridiculous, and yes, you look great. Stop worrying." Liz took a swig of wine from the bottle, and made a face. "Particularly good vintage, some light notes of sandalwood and... I dunno, cake." She handed the bottle to Kat, who took a sip. Merlot. Her father let her have it at dinner sometimes. This was cheap Merlot, but nice enough. Liz wriggled over so she was sitting in front of Kat, and the hair braiding commenced. Kat took another drink of wine, handed the bottle back to Liz, and sighed, looking at the shelf of trophies.

"What's up?"

"Nothing, I just... I suppose I wish I was really good at something."

"You're good at complicated up-dos that take me about a year to undo. Roddy's going to lose it, I don't think he's ever seen me looking so ladylike."

Kat smiled and tucked a bobby pin in. "You two seem so mismatched."

"Yeah, we're very different. He's great though. I thought about dating Gil for a bit, but it's like... you'd never feel like he'd care about you anywhere near as much as he cares about himself, you know? You should see his blog, is almost entirely selfies and him talking about how great he is. Plus, as far as we ever went was a game of doctors and nurses when we were about eight. Funny story, he thought I was a guy until then. Pretty sure Elizaveta's not a common male name in Germany, so asked him why, and he said that he didn't think girls were as good at wrestling as I was."

"Oh please, you could beat him up anyday."

"I have. For all his pec-building crap, he has no idea how to fight. Anyway, Roddy's different. He's fine with me being into sports and stuff and him being into cooking and music. He doesn't see it as him being inferior, so it's not a big deal. He doesn't get some of my interests, but he likes to see me swim, and I like it when he plays his piano. I know he comes across as kind of stuck up or prissy or whatever, but he cares about me." Liz took another drink from the bottle and handed it back to Kat. "He's pretty great really, putting up with me being an uncivilised slob."

Kat shook her head and took a swig. "I don't see you like that."

"No?"

"No. Archery isn't uncivilised. Neither is competitive swimming, or knowing how to do someone's makeup just right, no matter what they look like." Kat inserted the last bobby pin. "And uncivilised slobs would never suit this hairstyle." She held a small mirror behind Liz's head while she faced the full length mirror on her wall.

"That's amazing. It's like hair origami. Hairigami." Liz smiled widely, then frowned. "I'm going to go brush my teeth, probably shouldn't have gone with red wine. Then we'll head off, OK?"

Kat nodded, and observed her reflection in the mirror. For once... she looked nice, she thought. The black dress was slimming, and, even though she hated them, she had been assured by Liz that her breasts looked fine. Liz had even managed to give her cheekbones, she realised, with a light touch to her face. She took a deep breath, and stood up straight. Tonight, she told herself, I am just going to be happy and normal.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Hello, author here. Just letting you know a few warnings for this chapter; it will involve swearing, alcohol, mild drug use, and sexual assault. Thanks for the follows, and, as always, if you want to leave feedback, please do! **_

_**Chapter 5**_

Kat eased herself into the black leather couch and stared around her. Gilbert was, predictably, already on his way to being drunk, Toni and Francis having arrived early to "pre-game".

"Something for the ladies" announced Gilbert, returning from the kitchen with three more beers. He handed two to Kat and Liz, drained the last of the one on the coffee table, then cracked open the third. Francis snorted.

"Ah, Gilbert breaks out his refined tastes again, hmm?"

"Sorry, your majesty, did you want a wine cooler?"

"No. Actual wine."

Francis headed off to the cellar with two bottles. Gilbert shook his head. "Are you seriously going to switch his wine again?"

"Yes. Has he noticed so far?"

"Of course not, he doesn't drink it for the taste, he drinks it to get wasted while still looking credible. But you've done this so often that you'll probably end up with some of the cheap piss you bought in the first place."

Francis smiled nonchalantly. "I'll take my changes. Unless you were hoping that these two shared your fondness for crushing cans against your head-"

He was interrupted by an earth-shattering belch from Liz, who was by now halfway through her beer. Francis rolled his eyes.

"I stand corrected. At least we have one lady here this evening."

Liz rubbed her stomach and stuck her tongue out. "Shut up and bring up some wine. I'm getting it out of my system, Roddy would probably faint or something."

"Yeah, the poor little baby girlboy would probably need a lace handkerchief full of smelling salts." Gil spun around, "fainting" onto the sofa, head landing in Kat's lap. She jumped, but he didn't seem to care.

"Oh, Kat" he mocked in a high-pitched voice, "Thank god you're here to wet nurse me back to health! Such vulgarity!"

"Yeah, very funny, get your fat head off Kat's lap." Liz was not impressed.

"But the view!" protested Gil. Liz threw a cushion at his head.

"Get off her damn lap, you pig!"

Gil cackled with laughter and sat up. He clapped a hand on Kat's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, that was rude."

"Sacre bleu! Did I just see Gilbert "Once projected a thirty foot high image of his ass onto the side of the gym" Beidleschmidt apologise for something?"

"Shut up, Mr Hide-The-Baguette." Gil took the wine from Francis and grabbed two glasses from the cabinet.

Kat took her wine with a grateful smile. She didn't mind Gil really; he was more boisterous than mean-spirited. Kind of like Ivan, she figured. Toni was fun and managed to make work feel more like socialising, with his stupid made-up songs about plants and Lovino coming up with increasingly creative ways of insulting him. She felt the couch dip as Francis took a seat next to her. She had only met him a handful of times, and couldn't really figure him out. He screwed around with Gil and Toni, and, according to Liz, "he uses his dick as a dowsing rod; that kid who fucked a Hot Pocket thinks he's hardcore, Francis would probably have made love to it". He was attractive, she decided, but in a very Disney prince sort of way.

"How have you been?" Francis tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind his ear, the rest held back in a loose ponytail.

"Good, thankyou. Keeping busy with work and school. How have you been? I don't think I've seen you in a while."

"Last time was probably Roderich's birthday. And I've been well, applying for colleges, that sort of thing."

Kat forgot that Francis was, unlike Gil or Toni, quite proud of being the academic sort.

"What are you thinking of taking?"

"Art history." He smiled warmly. "You know me and my little pictures." He patted her on the shoulder. "Michele's here, I'll talk to you later."

Michele was in her French class, a beautiful girl with dark skin, wide eyes and an infectious laugh. She seemed to like everyone, even reaching up to ruffle Ivan's hair and calling him a gentleman when he held a door open for her once (Ivan had turned uncharacteristically red). Kat had not been surprised to find that she was Francis' cousin; charm seemed to run in their family.

By midnight, Kat realised that she hadn't seen Liz for a little while, and assumed that she was with Roddy, making use of one of the many rooms in the house. She hopped down from the counter she was perched on, feeling her head swim. Once the wine had run out, it was back to the beers, and that Heracles guy had bought some revolting stuff that she nonetheless had four shots of anyway (Sambucca? No, Ouzo, she thought). It dawned on her; why was she on her own? Liz was otherwise occupied, but she could be talking to Toni, or Lovi (who had arrived earlier, cheerful younger brother in tow, and had sneaked a slice of the pizza he was to share with Ludwig), or Matthew. She'd barely spoken to Matthew tonight, and she still felt guilty for snapping at him over that stupid apple. She soon determined Lovi's location upon seeing him in a cinch with Bella, Ned's sister and Michele's friend, and Toni, Gil and Francis were making a loud, cacophonous noise presumably meant to be a drinking song. It was when she was making her way to the bathroom, bladder feeling as though it were bulging out of her stomach, that she heard a familiar piercing voice.

"Heeey, Kat!"

She turned around to see a flushed-looking Alfred grinning at her. He attempted to wave with the hand holding his beer, and sloshed some onto his shoes. Kat couldn't help but laugh.

"Hi Alfred. Does Matthew know you're here?"

"Yeah, he's outside, getting baked with that-" he belched loudly "-that big guy, you know, Scarface. So he can't yell at me for drinking."

"Ah, that's where he went. Are you here on your own?"

"Nah, I dragged Artie here, but he got shitfaced on those gross shots and now he's passed out upstairs. Spoke to Yao though, dude's pissed off because Adnan thought he was a chick."

Kat frowned. "Yao? Yao Wang?"

"Yeah."

"I thought Ivan was staying at his tonight."

Alfred shrugged. "Probably still is, go ask him." He gestured to behind Kat. She turned around to reveal that her brother was, in fact, in the dining room, swigging from a bottle of vodka.

"Your brother's kind of a dick, y'know? You're cool though."

Kat wasn't listening. Instead, she stormed up to her younger sibling, almost feeling herself morphing into her mother, and bellowed

"IVAN BRAGINSKI!"

Ivan nearly fell off his seat in alarm. Upon realising who was shouting, he grinned.

"Sestra! Why are you yelling?"

"Because you're drunk!"

Ivan shrugged, usual infuriating smile working its way across his face. "And you are not?"

Kat noticed a small, feminine-looking boy next to her brother who was rather red in the face and trying not to laugh.

"Yao, right?"

Yao nodded. "You're not going to tell, are you?"

Kat sighed, feeling as though the fight had been knocked out of her. "No, I mean, I'm here too. Just... don't get too drunk. Where did you even get that?"

"Adnan."

Kat frowned. She didn't know an Adnan.

"Fine. I'm going to go find Matthew."

"Does he know Alfred's here?"

"Apparently."

Kat found Matthew outside, as stated, sharing a joint with Ned. She couldn't help but feel as though she'd interrupted a moment as Matthew gawped at her, red-eyed, apparently having forgotten how to greet people.

"...hi."

This was awkward. Ned muttered a quiet "Hello" as Matthew finally found his voice and blurted out "Kat, when did you get here?"

"I was here before you!"

"Right, right." Matthew glanced at Ned, who nodded at her.

"Having a good night?"

"Yeah. Good, thanks." She cleared her throat. "Turns out Ivan's here too."

"That's good. For him." Matthew gave a vague smile. Kat felt a wave of frustration.

"Well, I can see that you're not in a talkative mood, so-"

"Oh, come on Kat, you're trying to get sense out of me after eight beers and-" Matthew inspected his joint "-what's this stuff?"

"Blueberry" Ned explained.

Kat sighed in defeat. "Have fun, I'll talk to you tomorrow or whatever." She heard Matthew calling after her as she walked away, and ignored him.

The kitchen was empty by this point. Fortunately, another bottle of that foul Ouzo remained. She wasn't sure why she needed to drink at that point; maybe a combination of being on her own, the horribly awkward exchange with Matthew, the knowledge that her little brother was there too, and just...

Well. She was the fat girl at a party. She looked down at the dress that Liz had loaned her and felt sick. What was she thinking? No-one wanted to see her doughy flesh spilling out of a dress bought for someone actually worthy of it. She drank deeply from the bottle and grimaced, forcing the stuff down. Her throat, gullet, belly burned.

"Nasty, isn't it?"

Kat choked and spluttered some of the liquid down her chest. She felt a firm pat on her back.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you."

Kat regained her breath. A tall, olive-skinned guy with stubble and a lazy smile was standing in front of her.

"Sorry, is this yours?" she gestured to the bottle.

"Nah, Heracles brings that shit to every party. I think he's got an infinite supply of it or something."

"Oh." Kat took a more thoughtful sip. "I'm Kat."

"Adnan."

Kat's eyes narrowed. "Oh, so you're the one who supplied my little brother with vodka then?"

"Little? If your brother's the guy I'm thinking of, I'm sure he can handle it. Huge guy, hot Asian girlfriend?"

"He is a huge guy, but that's his friend, and a guy."

Adnan burst out laughing. He had very white teeth.

"OK, sorry I had a part in getting your brother drunk."

"It's OK. He's fifteen, it was going to happen at some point."

Adnan lit a pipe and took a small puff from it. "Been a strange sort of night" he mused, exhaling. He offered the pipe to Kat.

"What is it?"

"Hashish. Nice stuff, very mellow. I hear Ned's got that blueberry stuff, knocks you on your ass."

"Yeah, my friend's currently got the conversational skills of a shoe." Kat took another drink of Ouzo, finding that it went down easier this time, and accepted the pipe. It was blown glass, various swirling shades of green. Adnan snorted into his beer.

"What?"

"A shoe. That's funny." He offered a lighter. Kat took a drag, fighting the urge to cough out the smoke that seemed to punch a hole in her chest. She held it in until sweat dampened her hairline, then let it go. Combined with the drink, it made her feel... boneless. Simultaneously heavy and made of mist. She felt Adnan brush a strand of hair off her face.

"Do you go to school?" she found herself asking. Adnan shook his head.

"No. Graduated last year."

"You're quite a bit older than me."

Why did you say that? She asked herself. You sound like an immature child.

"Really? How old are you?"

"Nearly seventeen."

Now she did sound like a child, a child thinking that "eight and three quarters" was a proper age. She realised that Adnan's hand was on the small of her back, and could smell his hashish and beer and a smell of woodchips and sawdust. His other hand was occupied, thumb tracing circles on her wrist. She felt as though she were looking at this scene from far away, and yet...

Well. No-one had thought she was anything special before. Adnan was attractive, and muscular enough to make her feel positively dainty in comparison. She kept these musings going as she felt warm, slightly chapped lips against hers, and stubble scraping around her mouth, and felt herself wrap her arms around the back of Adnan's neck. Maybe this was how Liz felt, she thought, as a tongue darted in and around her mouth, deft as a newt, feeling worth it. Maybe, she decided, as she felt a hand on her inner thigh, I'm worth more than hating myself.

The hand moved further up her thigh. Not too far, she decided, taking it and moving it back down. Adnan broke away and frowned at her.

"What?"

"What yourself." She felt dizzy and confused and just wanted to get back to the nice kissing part.

Adnan shook his head and kissed her again. Almost immediately, the hand was creeping back up her thigh. She pushed it away.

"Can we just..." the words hung unsaid in the cloudy air. Another kiss. The hand, more forceful this time, found its way into her panties before she could remove it. She wriggled away and ripped the hand out, catching her pubic hair and making her eyes water. Adnan was scowling, displeased. She was a disappointment again.

"Come on, let's not mess around, we both know what we're here for."

Now she was backed up against a cupboard, and his hand was there again, frantically fumbling and coarse and prodding demandingly at her most intimate area. His mouth muffled her shrieks of protest at first, but then she shoved him back. Somehow invigorated by this, he continued, more forcefully, and she suddenly felt dry-mouthed and sick and scared.

"Get off me!"

"Don't be stupid, you'll like this-" he pressed a finger against that usual area that felt so good if she touched it herself, but he was too rough, the feeling... it made her want to die.

"I don't, get off, get off now, pl-"

She was cut off by a loud "What the fuck?" from Adnan as he was torn from her. He was turned around only to come face-to-face with an utterly livid Ivan. Adnan cleared his throat.

"Fuck's sake, kid, your sister and I are busy-"

Ivan punched him in the face, sending him sprawling on the floor. Blood started spilling from his nose.

"You leave. Now." Ivan was breathing heavily, fists clenched. Adnan staggered to his feet.

"What, you don't think your sister gets around? In that fucking get-up?" He pointed at Kat's chest, and she realised too late that her bra had been exposed. A crowd had started to gather, and Gil pushed his way through the people.

"Adnan, what the fuck's going on?"

Adnan wiped at the blood trickling down his upper lip and pointing accusingly at Ivan.

"This fucking freak punched me because I was about to get lucky with his sister-"

"No you weren't." Ivan was trembling with fury. "You were forcing it on her-"

"-Oh come on, look at her. Doesn't take much forcing."

"Kat? What's going on?" Liz emerged from the den next to the kitchen. Adnan threw his hands in the air in disgust.

"You know what, fine. I try to be nice to this fucking fat cock-tease here, her psycho brother punches me. Yeah, that makes sense. Fuck all of you."

At that point, he found himself being rather roughly manhandled towards the door by Gil and Ivan.

"For fuck's sake Gil, what do you care about-"

"She is my friend" Gil informed him in a murderous tone that Kat had never heard before. "If you talk about any of my friends like that again, me, Toni, Francis, and this big fucker here will fucking kill you. Get out."

Kat was conscious of many things; of Yao asking if they should call the police, of Liz calling a cab to take them home, of Matthew blearily asking what had happened, of Michele rubbing her shoulder and anxiously trying to get her to drink some water, of Alfred congratulating Ivan on a good punch ("Good job man, if that were my sister, I'd have fucking killed him"). She managed to murmur something about just wanting to go back to Liz's. Liz squeezed her hand and told her that a cab would be there shortly. Yao asked insistently if she was sure she didn't want to call the police. Kat shook her head, said she'd deal with it the next day. She managed to say goodbye to Ivan, whisper "Father knows nothing about this, ever. Understand? And thanks", and finally, at long last, she collapsed into the cab and cried on Liz's shoulder, chest sticky with Ouzo, dress partially ripped, private parts burning with shame. She was wrong. She wasn't worth anything, in particular. She was, after all, the fat girl at a party with her expanse of flesh of display for anyone to claim.

The sheer shame and disappointment stung more than the hot water in the bath at Liz's place, and, for the first time ever, she was truly motivated to wither away to nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Hello, usual AN here. Any critique/thoughts welcome, TW ED/Sexual Assault/Drugs for this chapter. I do not own Hetalia. If I did, I wouldn't do such a boring job in my real life.**_

_**Chapter 6**_

The water in the tub had long gone cold, but Kat still lay there, listlessly, weightlessly floating. The bathtub at Liz's house was enormous, she could easily have floated properly in that, but now she could feel her buttocks against the bottom of the tub, her shoulders gently bumping against the side. She had checked herself for marks; nothing but a couple of small, fingerprint bruises on her right inner thigh, and a slightly red mark on her wrist from where Adnan had grabbed her.

Everyone saw, she thought. Everyone there, anyway. She considered damage limitation; was anyone there likely to tell anyone what happened? Of course, no-one there seemed like a bad person, but then, you didn't have to be a bad person to find gossip interesting.

Oh God. It would be all over school by the end of tomorrow. The thought was too much to bear.

A gentle tap on the door interrupted her train of thought.

"Katyusha?" Ivan sounded almost nervous. Since getting home from Liz's earlier, she had gone straight to her room, and attempted to sleep (and failed on account of thoughts of the party spinning in her head and her stomachs relentless churning). She cleared her throat.

"Yes?"

"Can I come in?"

"No. I'm in the bath."

"That's fine. I'll sit out here."

Before they moved, Ivan's room had been next to Kat's. They had developed a little code, communicating through series of taps on the thin wall, until their mother banned it because it was, in all fairness, extremely irritating. Right now, Ivan's fingers tapped out five rapid little knocks, followed by drumming his fingers twice. Kat smiled in spite of herself.

"My stomach feels better, I guess, so there's that. It felt like I had a rat king in my gut earlier."

"A what?"

"A rat king. When lots of rats get stuck together, like by their tails being tangled, and they have to live like that."

"That's… disgusting."

"Exactly. I should probably tell Natalya about that, actually, I think she'd find it interesting."

There was a brief silence. Kat sloshed the cold water back and forth with her bare feet. She still had cornflower blue nail polish on her toes from the nice weather, when she wore flip flops.

"Kat?"

"Mm?"

"How are you though? Apart from the hangover."

Kat sighed and contemplated sinking under the water forever.

"Bad. This is bad, I mean. Someone's definitely going to say something, aren't they? And then everyone will know, and…fuck." She squeezed her eyes shut tight as her voice cracked, trying to ignore the burning feeling.

"If they do, I'll kill them." Ivan sounded far too cheerful in his threat.

"That's just going to make things worse, Vanya. Besides, Natalya's more likely- oh God, Natalya's going to find out."

"So what if she does? It's not your fault that bastard couldn't keep his hands to himself-"

"-I'm older. I'm supposed to set a good example. How's she going to feel when she hears people talking about how her older sister was found drunk and high with someone's hands in her pants in someone's kitchen?"

"It says more of him than you-"

"Don't be stupid" she snapped, "You know as well as I do what people are like. It's all _well, she shouldn't have been dressed like that, going out and getting drunk, what did she expect?,_ and they think that makes it fine, like I got punished for being irresponsible." Tears were streaming now. She gave a not particularly graceful sniff as her nose started to run. The bathroom door clicked open.

"Ivan!" she yelled.

"I'm not looking, see?" Ivan was right about that; he had his left hand over his eye, and was feeling his way around the bathroom with the right. He wasn't doing a very good job, though. He ended up walking forehead-first into the shelf. Kat couldn't help but smile in spite of herself.

"Ivan, get out before you hurt yourself."

"Sorry."

"For what?"

"Buying vodka off that guy."

"Ivan, you didn't know he was a creep. I mean, the warning signs were there, but I guess they were pretty well hidden, I mean, I didn't see them."

"I suppose so. Still though, I'll try and get people to not say anything. The guidance counsellor says I'm naturally intimidating."

"Vanya, you are an large idiot." Kat smiled softly. "But thanks. Now get out, I want to get out of the tub."

Any efforts that Ivan was going to make were far too late, as it turned out. Kat felt every pair of eyes on her as she headed for her locker.

_Still thinking everyone's looking at you?_ She scolded herself_. Of course they're not. Nothing to see. Just a plain, fat girl in a plain frumpy sweater, barely any skin on display at all. _

A group of younger students walked past. Was it her imagination, or did one subtly gesture towards her and giggle to her friend?

It was only during first period Geography that it became apparent that news had spread. Mrs Pahnjia was passing around photographs from her years traveling, and, cautiously asked the class to be careful.

"Try and hold them by the edges, I don't want fingerprints all over the place."

Matthias, a tall, loud boy who sat next to Kat, handed the photo he was holding to her. "Yeah, Kat. Not everyone likes fingerprints everywhere as much as you, right?"

The impact of the words felt like it was going to throw Kat off her chair. She managed to gawp witlessly, the world suddenly sounding very muffled. The rat king was apparently stirring in her stomach again. Her train of thought was interrupted by the sharp crack of a hand on the back of Matthias' head, and his resulting yelp.

Lukas, a quiet, aloof boy who almost never smiled and inexplicably hung around with Matthias, glared.

"Shut up, moron."

"Oh, come on, I was just messing. Kat doesn't mind, do you Kat?"

"Kat doesn't mind much of anything!" someone called out, and the class was in hysterics. That was all it took. She couldn't tell if it was just a small group of people giggling, or the entire building roaring with mirth, mouth stretched open, strings of spittle on display like cello strings, but it made no difference. She started stuffing her things into her bag, gave up at the large ring binder, and ran out. She could hear Mrs Pahnjia shouting for everyone to be quiet, and a shriek of "You fucking prick, Matthias!" presumably from Liz. She ran until she was off the school grounds, then collapsed, panting and sobbing against a tree. It had rained during the night, and she found her hands sinking in the mud. She shifted down, sat on the ground, and felt the rain soak through her jeans. Wiped her face with a muddy hand. Wished she had something to blow her nose on.

She thought she had imagined it when she heard someone shouting her name. Then she heard it again, lifted her dripping face, and recognised a familiar red blur. Matthew crouched down next to her, and wordlessly offered her a tissue.

"You've got mud on your face" he told her gently. And she wasn't sure why, but that just made her cry harder. Matthew repositioned himself to be sat next to her and waited. Eventually, the crying subsided and was replaced by a sad, empty feeling with hints of humiliation.

"I'm sorry."

Matthew shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. I was shit company and I left you on your own with that-"

"You don't need to babysit me."

"I wasn't a good friend though. I was caught up with Ned, and I was too high to be helpful when I found out what happened... fuck. I'm sorry."

Kat wiped a tear off her cheek, presumably smearing more mud in the process.

"No, you went to a party. You had fun. That's the idea. It's not your fault, what Adnan did."

"It was horrible. Alfred's been talking about how much he wants to kick that guy's ass ever since. Trust me, everyone is on your side. Gil says he's going to beat the shit out of him when he next sees him, and Toni and Francis are happy to back him up. Hell, I'll join in if I have to."

"You don't. I just want to forget about it."

"I get that. But come on, that's assault. Have you talked to the police about it?"

"No. I don't want to."

"Sure?"

Kat buried her face in her knees. "Matthew..."

"OK, OK. Sorry. It's your decision. I'm here if you need to talk though."

"Thanks. I should probably get back though." Kat glanced at her phone. "Shit. I have twenty minutes before social studies."

Matthew stood up, took her hand and hauled her to her feet. "Let's get going then."

They'd been walking for five minutes before Kat broke the silence.

"Mattie?"

Matthew smiled. "Since when do you call me Mattie?"

Kat shrugged. "Liz does. Anyway, what's going on with Ned?"

Matthew couldn't hide his smile, so stared at the ground.

"I think we're kind of dating. I don't know though. We get on well though."

"Have you kissed him?"

"Yeah. A few times."

"Don't you buy weed off him?"

"Well, usually, but we get on well. I know he seems really serious-"

"- a strange trait for a pothead-"

"- yeah, but he's a really good guy. I like him. He seems to like me. So... I don't know. We'll see how it goes."

Kat leaned her head on Matthew's shoulder.

"So... are you gay, or bi, or..."

"I don't know. I know I like Ned though."

"Does Alfred know?"

"No. He'd probably find it weird. I mean, he'd get used to it, but he'd still be weirded out. Probably better to wait until things are more concrete before talking to him."

Kat smiled. "Well, I hope it works out. He seems OK. I don't know him well or anything, but I hope it works out."

Matthew laughed. "Yeah, it'd be good for one of us to be in a decent relationship-" his face fell. "Sorry. That wasn't a dig at you."

Kat frowned. "What about Liz?"

"You didn't hear?"

"I guess not, she was probably trying to avoid talking to me about boys after... you know."

"Oh. Well, this didn't come from me, but she and Roderich had a huge fight, something about her still being friends with Gil. She ended up spending most of the party hiding in the den with Feli and Ludwig, stealing their pizza and playing video games."

"Have they broken up?"

"I don't know. They haven't spoken since."

They spent the rest of the walk in silence. Just before they got to their classroom, Matthew spat on a tissue, and rubbed a spot of dirt from Kat's face.

"Gross. Thanks, mother."

"No worries."

The classroom was mostly full. Kat sat near the front, and felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to face Matthias.

"What?"

He looked somewhat embarrassed.

"Look, I just want to apologise for earlier. I was being a dick. I heard what actually happened, and..."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does though. I'm sorry. And if I see that guy-"

"Oh God, not you too. Seems everyone wants to beat him senseless."

"Good."

Kat gave Matthias an awkward smile, and turned to face the front.

The class was mostly uneventful. Mr Mehrban droned on, made them copy out slides. Kat found herself staring vacantly forward, hand moving, but mostly just producing squiggles on the page.

"Miss Braginskaya."

It took a moment before Kat realised that she was being addressed. She swallowed, cleared her throat.

"Yes?"

"Let me see your notes."

Mr Mehrban took her notebook, and gazed scornfully at the page.

"You haven't been taking notes."

Kat shrank down in her seat. "No."

"Might I ask what you were thinking about instead of the subject matter?"

She had no idea how to answer. She managed to sigh out a weak "Nothing."

"Nothing. Wonderful. Well, since nothing is apparently so interesting to you, on top of your homework, you can submit a short piece of at least two hundred words about the nature of nothing and why you like it so much."

Matthias, clearly still feeling guilty, raised his hand. "Mr Mehrban, is that really-"

"Shut up, Matthias. Now, if everyone would like to turn to..."

Kat hadn't eaten all day. She hadn't felt any need to; the party weighed on her mind so heavily that her stomach didn't even factor into her priorities. Her father was out having drinks with a client, and had left money for pizza, which she declined on the basis that she had gone to Sub-Versive, the local sandwich place, for lunch and destroyed a foot-long turkey melt. Now, she was sat in her room, feeling almost weightless, and about to start on her history homework. Except her mind kept drifting back to her "nothing" assignment, and, the more she thought about the sad, gnawing ache in her empty stomach, the more inspired she felt. She opened a new Word document, and began typing.

_**The Nature of Nothing**_

_There's a unifying nature to nothing, in the sense that everyone could, theoretically, have it. There's a riddle I once read where the answer was nothing; the poor have it, the rich want it, what am I? And it made a lot of sense. _

_Nothing is a measure of character. Someone who desires nothing has more time to think about other, more worthy issues Someone who has nothing and desires nothing moreso. Nothing is both powerful enough to build character, and light enough to not exist. Nothing is something we should all want; Something can always be taken from you, but Nothing can't. If someone tries to subtract Nothing, they get... Nothing. _

_Nothing is good. Nothing is both weightless, non-existent, and important to everyone. Nothing niggles at us because we don't see it as desirable, when it is nothing but. Nothing gnaws at me and cleanses me like Something never could begin to do. Nothing is something that humans seem to fear more than anything; Nothing inspired heaven and hell, the concept of a soul. Nothing is all that keeps humanity on track. If we didn't have Nothing, we'd be stagnant and even more arrogant. Nothing isn't just an absence of Something, it's just as essential. And that's why I find Nothing so interesting._

Kat shut her laptop and lay back on her bed. Before long, she was asleep, with images of fresh rain and black holes and cold kitchen tiles.


End file.
